NEW DELHI - Successfully driven social media campaign was one of the key highlights of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s election strategy in run up to 2014 Lok Sabha elections, but it seems a big section of ministers in his government have still not understood the usefulness of social media platforms like Twitter, as a recent stock taking exercise ordered by the PM revealed that nearly 40 percent of ministers in his...

government still do not have social media accounts. Soon after taking over as prime minister, Modi, who himself is world’s second most followed politician on Twitter, had “suggested in clear terms” to his ministers and ministries to join social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and even blogs to directly connect with public at large. Now review, sent to PMO in first week of September on occasion of completion of 100 days of NDA government, has revealed that while some heard him loud and clear and not just joined social media but also started actively using it there were some who either don’t have a social media account or are not actively using it. The union Information and Broadcasting ministry which prepared this report on directions of PMO believes that once PMO takes action on the report, the scene would change.As per the review report, apart from the PM, only 26 out of 44 ministers and only 20 of 60 ministries and departments, which is literally 1/3rd, have verified accounts on social media platforms. The report reveals that Modi and PMOIndia, the official Twitter handle of PMO, have the largest number of followers. Leaving aside Modi, the top five ministers have most followers are External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Human Resource DevelopmentMinister Smriti Irani, Defence and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Health Minister Harsh Vardhan. In the ministries and departments, the top ministries in the list are external affairs Information and Broadcasting, Home Affairs, Railways and the Ministry of Human Resource Development.